After my classes were over, I was preparing to go back to the Lubiche mansion when a lady approached me. Students were making their way out of the school behind me, and I closed my locker to look at the Lady with lavender hair before me.
“Um… Lady Lubiche.”
She was Lady Ovidus, the main lead of the tea party that the madman had ruined last week.
“Nice to meet you, Lady Ovidus.”
Although we had seen each other since we were in the same classes, we had never talked to each other privately. I made a friendly smile.
“Ah, sorry about what happened last time. You know, the one involving his majesty, Reynold.”
Lady Ovidus covered her lips with her hands and nodded.
“No, I am really fine. I liked seeing you two together.”
Was she sincere? Since all aristocrats talked in a round-about way, I couldn’t be sure that she was being honest.
“I am thankful that you think that way, but what did you call me for?”
Lady Ovidus hesitated like she was going to tell me an exciting story, but her question was disappointingly plain.
“Lady, are you going to enroll in college?”
Why did she ask me that? With a surprised look on my face, I nodded.
“Yes, I am planning to apply to Alpine University’s Magic Department. I had already chosen Economics as my minor too.”
Since I had something like Magic in me, my first choice was the Magic Department. If I learned Magic, I could make magic tools, become a magic professor, or do pretty much anything. My reason for applying to the Economics department was also similar. I had to get an education foremost and needed to study rigorously since I had to put a lot of effort into learning what others had taken for granted.
“I see. It’s because other ladies say, ‘they won’t go as far as applying to colleges’.”
Lady Ovidus made an embarrassed smile.
“I was worried that people would laugh at me, saying that I was the only aristocratic Lady to enroll into college. Truthfully, I was scared of being treated like the odd one. I thought I would feel better if someone else was doing the same thing as me. I am glad that I have you.”
I began to feel a sense of companionship towards Lady Ovidus. Since I came from the modern world, I didn’t have such prejudices nor cared about what others thought as much, but this was a natural way of thinking for someone like Lady Ovidus.
“Um… Then, can we prepare for the entrance exam together?”
Lady Ovidus stared at me with sparkling eyes, and because she looked so cute like a rabbit, I couldn’t refuse her. And from that point on, I began to study with Lady Ovidus, Armand.
* * *
Lady Ovidus, Armand visited the Lubiche mansion from time to time. She visited me much more often than I visited the Ovidus’ residence.
This was because her personality was more impatient than mine, and she hated waiting. And thankfully, the madman always happened to have something to do when she came to visit. If I remembered what had happened at the tea party, my head still ached.
“Ena!”
Without even a shred of aristocratic etiquette, Rioel pushed the door open without a single knock and halted when he saw Armand.
“Uh…”
He slurred the end of his sentence like an idiot. I wondered if he was really an aristocrat.
Armand, who had been sitting on the library’s desk with me, hurriedly got up and greeted Rioel.
“Pleased to meet you, sir Lubiche. I am Armand Audrey Ovidus.”
As Armand lifted the edges of her dress and made a sweet greeting, Rioel nodded with a dumbfounded look on his face.
“Ah, hello, Lady. I am Rioel Theodore Lubiche.”
I looked at Rioel, who was greeting stiffly like a broken doll and asked.
“Why are you here?”
“Huh. Huh?”
With his stupid response, I sighed. Why was he suddenly acting like this?
“Do you want to at least come in?”
He still had a bewildered look on his face as he nodded and came inside the library.
I wondered if he had fallen in love-at-first-sight with Armand or something. Rioel looked at Armand and me back and forth like he really thought this was unexpected.
“This is my first time seeing you bring someone besides his majesty, Reynold. Like you don’t have any friends.”
I suddenly felt like smacking him on the back of his head.
After returning back to normal, Rioel scanned the top of the desk. He tilted his head sideways to look at the scattered books and papers on the desk.
“What are you doing?”
I shrugged my shoulders and pointed at the top of the desk.
“As you can see, studying for an exam.”
Rioel made a short sigh. He rummaged through the books on the table and sneaked in front of the circular table that we were sitting on and took a seat without saying anything. I watched him quietly with the feather pen in my hands and spoke.
“Did you come here because you are bored?”
It seemed I had hit the mark, as Rioel shook his shoulders and stared at me. His inner pupils shook sideways, and as he pretended to be occupied by something else, and I took the thickest history book on the table and handed it to him.
“Then, why don’t you help us study. Didn’t you say that you got first place in the academy’s history department?”
“Oh my, really? Can I ask you something?”
Armand gathered her hands and stared at Rioel with sparkling eyes. As if he was intimidated by these eyes, Rioel glanced at me.
“Never mind it, if you don’t want to.”
Rioel quickly shook his head at my response.
“Then, I have a question.”
I opened the history textbook and asked him questions. Since test preps and practice questions didn’t exist in this society, I had a lot of questions to ask even in a subject that relied on heavy memorization.
“You know the fairy people who had existed a hundred years ago? Fairy Niaru. I heard that he had suddenly hid himself, but how did they find out that he was dead?”
When one studied the history of Ianarque, they naturally learned about the Fairy Niaru. This was because the fairies had been essential to the development of the Ianarque Holy See. Magic, holy power, and evil spirits existed in a world where there was nothing unbelievable about fairies, but they were still an extreme rarity. Even just after 100 years since their disappearance, fairies were like imaginary creatures in people’s mind.
“Ah. If you read the other book about fairies, they talk about it. After 50 years since his disappearance, people found his remains at the Carcus mountain. And 50 years since the discovery, scholars released a report that the remains strongly resembled that of Fairy Niaru.”
Then, Rioel explained more in detail. He took a piece of paper and a long feather pen and drew the Carcus mountain’s shape while continuing his explanation.
“The first place that Fairy Niaru had made his appearance was near the entrance of the Carcus mountain, but his ashes were found in that exact spot.”
“That means this finding is not certain, but possible.”
Rioel nodded to my words. Armand listened to our conversation quietly and took notes. Seeing that, Rioel became more eager and began to tutor us more passionately in history. Rioel was better at teaching than I had expected him to be, and that was really out of my expectations.
* * *
Regardless, the one who helped me out most in my studies was the madman.
“I thought I would never have to take a college entrance exam ever again.”
The madman, who had come to help me study, clicked his tongues at my complaints.
“But don’t you think that this is nothing compared to what Korean students have to go through?”
“You can’t compare this to Korean exams- the fields of study are completely different. There is no subject in Magic among the exam subjects.”
The madman nodded. Although there were strict social classes fixed into this world, the remarkable thing called ‘magic’ helped form intellectuals, expand the bourgeois class, and helped women gain greater social mobility. Nevertheless, prejudice still existed, and women were still discouraged from entering society.
“Hey, but why would you have to be knowledgeable in Magic? Why? What is the point of his majesty being skilled in Magic! You can just call a magician!”
In rage, I slammed the table with both of my fists, and the madman held to his chest in shock and stared at me. He looked so shocked, but afterwards, he smirked at me and drank tea.
“Is the fact that I am good at everything something to get so angry about?”
“Yes, I am furious. Why do I have to lag behind the madman once again?”
At my shouting, the madman spurted out his tea.
“M-madman, s….”
The madman wiped his mouth with the back of his hands and looked at me. If I thought about how much I had been tortured by him when the madman had been my employer, I grew angrier. I had always been good at my job. Truthfully, there had been many senior writers and PDs, who had fought to take me. But the madman was too perfect. That had been why I couldn’t talk back to him.
It couldn’t go on like this. I had to improve. I held my feather pen again and tried to solve a math problem when a shadow casted over my head. The madman was standing in front of a window, behind me, and was looking at the problem I was solving over my shoulders.
“The equation seems wrong.”
“Huh?”
The madman placed his hand on top of mine and fixed the mathematical equation. I glanced at the problem he had fixed. Damn it; it’s perfect.
“Cha Do-Hyuk, didn’t you study liberal arts?”
“What? No, I didn’t.”
The madman straightened his back again and sat on the windowsill; he rubbed his chin and tilted his head at me.
He asked me again, “Why do you think that? Even though I didn’t?”
“Weren’t you a Communications major in Korea University? I always thought you were my senior in the same department as me.”
I had always thought that since I was an outsider and our grades were different, I had just never gotten the chance to hang around the madman- but to think that we were just in completely different departments!
The madman became lost in thought and suddenly laughed.
“Ah, I remember now. I used to go to the Communications department because a friend I knew was in there. My major was in mechanical engineering. How did the rumors spread like that?”
Not just a liberal arts student- but a student in mechanical engineering? That was in the opposite STEM field, spectruym! I looked at the madman in surprise. He suddenly looked different to me. Since I had a bit of a fantasy in mechanical engineering, it was even more so. Ah, this man really had no faults. Not even a crack. I should study harder and try to loosely catch up to him.
I grabbed my feather pen again.
Let’s see! I will catch up to you someday!
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